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President Donald Trump announced a two-step maneuver that could appease frustrated supporters by keeping the government open and declaring a national emergency to get more money for a border wall. | Joe Raedle/Getty Image

Two months of feuding with congressional Democrats and the longest government shutdown in history has exacted a heavy political toll from President Donald Trump.

Top conservatives were furious when he appeared to cave to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after Congress refused to fund his border wall. At the same time, polls show that his wall crusade has turned off the independent voters he’ll need to win reelection.

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Yet Trump allies insist the president isn’t as damaged going into the 2020 campaign as Democrats might hope.

“It’s not been a good couple of months,” said Jonathan Felts, who served as political director for President George W. Bush and is close to Trump White House officials. “That said, when I talk to rank-and-file Trump supporters they are fine. From their perspective, he’s doing the best he can in a bad situation.”

On Thursday afternoon, Trump announced a two-step maneuver that could appease frustrated supporters. He will grudgingly sign a massive congressional spending bill that includes just $1.4 billion for border security, less than a quarter of his last demand, but he will also declare a national emergency to unlock Pentagon funds he can unilaterally steer to a border wall as well as use money from other projects.

Conservatives who blasted the congressional compromise had already been urging Trump to take that approach. In a Wednesday op-ed for Fox News’ website, Sean Hannity urged the president to sign Congress’ “garbage” deal and then declare a national emergency, showing “haters on both sides of the aisle” that he is “tenacious, and he will fight to get that wall built.”

Trump’s choice of that path came as something of a surprise. As of Thursday afternoon he had been widely expected only to redirect federal funds for the wall — without taking the more dramatic step of declaring a national emergency. Senior Republican leaders had urged Trump not to declare an emergency, but he sided — as he has so many times before — with core supporters like Hannity over the Washington GOP establishment.

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Before the White House announced Trump’s plans, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and a Trump confidant, predicted that Trump’s base would forgive him for signing congress’s spending bill if he then took unilateral steps to find more border wall money.

One outside adviser to the White House predicted that Trump’s many fans at Fox News, including Hannity, would wind up defending him. On Thursday afternoon, the lead story on Fox’s website highlighted finger-pointing among New York state Democrats over Amazon’s decision not to establish a headquarters in the state.

“This will pass,” said the person, referring to Trump as “Teflon Don.”

Nor are Trump’s conservative backers prepared to embrace Democrats, or even one of the more moderate Republicans contemplating a GOP primary challenge to Trump.

“He is a whole lot better than the alternative,” Felts added.

But locking down his conservative base isn’t enough to put Trump in a strong position for reelection in 2020. He still needs to win over at least some independents, and that task might be harder.

A strong economy and a well-received State of the Union address helped Trump overcome the hit he took with the 35-day government shutdown, which most Americans blamed him for.

Trump, too, may have benefited nationally from a spate of Democratic controversies on late-term abortion bills, a pair of statewide officials in Virginia admitting they donned blackface while in college and a congresswoman rebuked for making anti-Semitic comments, Republicans say.

But while Trump’s approval rating has bounced back, critics say he’s had the same problem since coming into office — his near-exclusive focus on his base limits his ability to reach out to centrists he won in his election 2016, then lost in a 2018 midterm election that he focused on issues like immigration and crime.

“This is indicative of Trump’s problem all along — while he is good at placating to his base by delivering red-meat concepts, he has consistently failed to use the power of his presidency to expand his base and bring in more voters through ideas that have more mainstream appeal,” Democratic strategist Adrienne Elrod said.

Republicans pointed to Trump's wobbly standing in several key electoral states — including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that were instrumental to his Trump's 2016 electoral college win. “His approval rating is under water in all three states right now, largely due to a loss of support in key suburbs and softening base and independent support,” Republican strategist Kevin Madden, who worked for 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, said.

But Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, who has advised the Trump White House, said Democrats didn’t score any points with independents during the last months of border wall fight, either. “They didn’t reach beyond their liberal left,” he said. “They played to liberal voters that severely dislike him.”

Trump echoed that point in remarks to reporters this week, previewing a theme sure to be central to his 2020 campaign: that he is doing battle with “socialist” Democrats.

“I appreciate all the work the Republicans are doing because they’re really going against a radical left,” he said. “It’s a radical left. And they’re going against it very hard and they’re fighting.”

Trump said he will sign the 1,159-page spending bill — unveiled late Wednesday and voted on by the House and Senate on Thursday night — despite warning lawmakers last year that he would never sign another massive spending bill hours after its introduction. His declaration of a national emergency — one of dozens by U.S. presidents over the past 45 years — will likely be challenged in court.

It wasn’t exactly a triumphant outcome for a president who campaigned as a master deal-maker able to reach across the aisle in ways his predecessors hadn’t. With Democrats freshly in control of the House, Trump was largely marginalized by lawmakers of both parties who didn’t want the White House involved as they sought a compromise to put the all-consuming politics of government shutdown behind them.

As he heads to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Friday, Trump may find himself contemplating lessons learned from a bruising battle with Democrats.

But with his conservative support seemingly solid, and nearly two years to woo independents, there is little sign of panic in his orbit.

“The most naïve thing anyone can do is count Trump out,” a former Trump White House official said.